The contract will boost Indian Railways' PV footprint across many corners of the country.

Image: PRNewsFoto/Azure Power India Pvt Ltd

Mercom Capital has released figures which show substantial investments into India’s solar sector in the fourth quarter of 2016. The company’s Q4 and Annual 2016 Solar Funding and M&A Report shows US$367 million in total corporate funding in six deals and $369 million five project funding deals, for a total of $736 million.

The six corporate funding deals include Azure Power’s $62 million initial public offering, which is a first for an Indian solar developer. The company has additionally raised $75 million through a private placement, and ~$25 million in pre-IPO rounds. Additionally Hindustan Clean Energy raised $130 million during the quarter as the largest debt financing deal.

Mercom also reported 764 MW of solar project acquisitions in India, but only had a monetary figure for one of these, the $392 million sale of 587 MW of SunEdison projects to Greenko Energies. Suzlon also sold its share in five projects in Telangana totaling 110 MW to multiple parties including Canadian Solar.

It remains to be seen how much the very high level of activity during this quarter was due to unusual events like the sale of the SunEdison projects and Azure’s IPO, and how much of this is simply a symptom of the extremely rapid growth of India’s solar market, which is expected to hit more than 9 GW this year.

Christian Roselund

Christian Roselund serves as Americas editor at pv magazine, and joined in 2014. Prior to this he covered global solar policy, markets and technology for Solar Server, and has written about renewable energy for CleanTechnica, German Energy Transition, Truthout, The Guardian (UK), and IEEE Spectrum.More articles from Christian Roselund